


Intro to Interview Development

by pocketsundere



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Interview Fic, M/M, also it's very anti-marvel so uh yeah, and of course troy and abed reunited and started dating, of course, six seasons and a movie, this was so much fun to write, tw ben shapiro is mentioned in this interview
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23971087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsundere/pseuds/pocketsundere
Summary: Abed is getting interviewed after one of his films makes it to Cannes.Post S6. Hinted Trobed. Formatted like an interview.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 10
Kudos: 150





	Intro to Interview Development

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it took me this long to write a Community fanfic. I have been a fan for nearly two years and it's by far my favorite show of all time.
> 
> I had to write an unconventional fanfic that doesn't follow the structure of other fanfics, out of respect for the show. #sixseasonsandamovie

**Abed Nadir: The Wackiness of My Life Made It Worthwhile.**

By Rhonda Shipton

Abed Nadir walks in just as how I imagined he would, as if he's not bothered by anything but looking all over the place as the brilliant observer of the human condition he is. He spots me and does a really cute finger gun at me. I laugh, then he sits and shakes my hand.

"You must be Rhonda." he says rather quickly. I'm still taken aback by how cute he is in person, so much so that it takes me a while to notice that he's not alone. Sitting at the bar is his partner, smiling our way, and nodding at me, which encourages me to snap out of my catatonic state.

"Forgive me if I talk too fast, people tend to get overwhelmed when I do that."

Then I realize I am talking to Abed Nadir, a unique indie filmmaker that is probably the most self-concious creators of his generation, and that makes me feel at ease. He's probably aware of my infatuation towards his cuteness, and that makes everything easier.

We talk about California and our love for _Twin Peaks_ , and though these are fascinating topics, I can't slip away from the real reason as to why I'm really here. Nadir is screening his new film, _Stories of Our Stories_ in Cannes this week, and it'll be released in selected cities not long after that. As an avid fan of his works, I ready myself for an interview that has already started on a good note. I doubt Mr. Nadir could provide anything else but that anyway.

 **INT** : So, I have to ask, what is it like to be at Cannes? How does it feel after looking back on your journey as a filmmaker?

 **NADIR** : I am surprised, I may not seem like it, but I am. Ten years ago, it seemed less than probable for me to create films, be at Festivals, or shake hands Francis Ford Coppola, frankly I'm surprised he's still alive at all. I guess a third cut of _Apocalypse Now_ could do all of us some good.

He takes a long pause.

 **NADIR** : I haven't told anyone this but I'm ready to come clean because your love for _Twin Peaks_ has inspired me. I once made a movie in which I played the role of Jesus, it was so awful I made sure it never saw the light of day.

 **INT** : I can imagine you in a wig and all of that. Bet you looked great!

 **NADIR** : Troy ( _Nadir's partner_ ) thinks it was a good look, so maybe the experience was worthwhile. It ( _the film_ ) was during my Community College days, I was still young and learning, it was a period of time in which it was still difficult for me to see reality for what it is: unpredictable, and lacking good editing. I overanalized stuff and had a way of looking at the future through simulations in a place I called The Dreamatorium, it was my magnum opus at the time. It sounds freaky, I'm aware, but it worked. For a while at least.

 **INT** : Interesting. Are you still doing them? Or did you stop them because you were scared of slipping out of reality?

Nadir takes his time to answer, and even smiles a little bit.

 **NADIR** : A very good friend of mine told me that they weren't really accurate, but rather a reflection of my own insecurities. And she was right. I have learned to be more open, and realize that there are things that are beyond my control and that it's better that way. I'm a terrible director sometimes.

 **INT** : Doubt it.

 **NADIR** : You say that because you haven't seen my Jesus film.

 **INT** : _(Laughs)_ And what were your main anxieties? 

**NADIR** : Not really doing anything amazing ( _Pause_ ) It frustrated me, I thought of really cool things all the time, but these simulations always held me back, so much so that I had forgotten that I already had started doing really cool stuff, I just had to keep on going. 

As many know, Nadir started off as a film student recording parodies, or homages, as he likes to call them, of the cult classic franchise, _Kickpuncher_ , which is set to release its much anticipated remake starring Channing Tatum and Bruce Willis this December. He also wrote and directed _The Community College Chronicles_ , a web series which reenacted the daily shenanigans he and his college friends went through. Nadir even mentioned on his The Guardian interview a couple of years ago that there were some episodes that were made and released way before the weird things actually took place. They were weirdly accurate, and he explained why by describing his creative process as "Looking at people through patterns of behavior and relations".

 **INT** : It raises the question, did it ever freak your friends out? With the show being weirdly accurate and all of that? 

**NADIR** : They thought I was a wizard. 

**INT** : ( _Laughs_ ) And? Are you?

 **NADIR** : Hm. The way I see it, wizards create things, they shape reality. So, we're all wizards.

From where he's sitting, his partner lets out a soft laugh. Nadir seems to hear it, since he tilts his head and smiles.

Two years ago, Nadir came out and made his relationship official with millionaire world-traveler Troy Barnes, who's not only known due to the Levar Burton pirate incident back in 2014, but for starring as Kickpuncher in several of Nadir's films. They met at Greendale Community College in Colorado and became the best of friends, inseparable as Nadir would constantly mention. They didn't get together right away, as many things stood on their way, such as misunderstandings, girlfriends, homophobia, and, eventually, oceans. Barnes goes into deeper detail about it on his autobiographical novel, _Tales from The Sea and Other Things_ , which contains an afterword written by Nadir himself. They maintain a level of privacy that seems almost impossible, considering how popular they both are in their respective fields.

 **INT** : Do you like the secrecy? Or is it stressing? 

**NADIR** : People care about the wrong things, I believe. But they don't care about my private life, which is good. I might be present on Twitter but I only complain about the state of modern cinema and the cancelation of _Cougar Town_. I'm still bitter about that. 

**INT** : Didn't you have a minor role on that show? 

**NADIR** : Yes, I did.

And I don't ask him any follow up questions because I sense awkwardness flourishing as he shifts on his seat.

 **INT** : What inspires you to write and direct films? What's your driving force? 

**NADIR** : Stories. Stories have structure, and they make sense, and sometimes life doesn't. I have been using stories to understand reality for most of my life, and it helped me, though I often lost touch, and I scared some people in the process. Most of them ran away, but the ones I loved the most didn't, they ran with it, supported me and my wackiness, and helped me with whatever issues I had to overcome. We were a great ensemble cast, and diverse too.

He must mean his college friends, people who have starred not only in his amateur homage films, but on his feature films such as _Midnight Bouquet_ , currently available on Youtube, which stars Annie Edison, who resides with him and Troy Barnes in a three story house in L.A, as a florist who falls in love with a figure skating prodigy. And the ninth series of the Modern Inspector Spacetime run, in which Nadir directed two episodes, _Blorgons in London_ and _The Inspector's Last Name,_ features close friends Britta Perry and Shirley Bennet as two investigators taking matters into their own hands. 

**INT** : Will we see any of your friends in this film?

 **NADIR** : ( _Intense look_ ) spoilers.

I repeat his answer and we move along.

 **INT** : Why are you so eager to put your friends on your works?

 **NADIR** : Because I love them, that's a cute answer but it's true. I love working with them, and they all have quirks that perfectly fit into my works. They have influenced me in so many ways, even if they weren't in my films, their footprint would still be all over them. They understand me and I understand them, and that's a thing I'd never had before I met them.

 **INT** : My biggest wish is to see Jeffrey Winger ( _a close friend of Nadir's_ ) in one of your films, that would be so much fun! Considering his internet reputation. ( _Laughs_ )

Last year, Jeffrey Winger was a Twitter sensation and not particularly in a good way. He gained his reputation after debating with Ben Shapiro in one of the longest threads in Twitter history, but, his career as a debating and complaining expert took up a few notches a couple of months later, when he posted a thread criticizing Marvel films, calling them "boring and predictable."

Marvel fans, outraged, got the hashtag #jeffreywingerisoverparty trending after digging some "dirt" on him, like the fact that he faked his bachelor's degree and had been practicing as an attorney for nearly seven years before getting caught, and an embarrassing MTV audition.

What was Nadir's reaction to this whole situation?

 **NADIR** : I knew Jeff could handle it, he's really good with words, and he always makes his arguments sound grounded and legitimate, it's all in his voice, it's the Winger Guarantee. He's a smart guy, and can win an argument even when he's not taking it seriously.

 **INT** : And yet Twitter still cancelled him, despite him raising strong arguments, while we're at it, what are your thoughts on Cancel Culture, as a member of the industry, as an observer?

 **NADIR** : Hm, sometimes I have a hard time understanding people despite how fascinating they are. They write paragraphs and paragraphs about how Tony Stark, a war criminal, is a good guy at heart, and the second someone doesn't agree, they start saying things like _"You have a big forehead"_ or " _Maybe you wouldn't have gotten caught if you stanned Tony Stark"_. They downgrade a person for disagreeing with them, instead of getting involved in healthy, geeklike discussion. Jeff grew up with tv and films, he knows what he's talking about, so why did he get crapped on and shamed for an entire week on Twitter for having a different opinion? How are we able to show more compassion towards fictional characters than real people? I guess people don't make sense, and neither does Tony Stark. Kind of a sloppy character, if you ask me.

 **INT** : I guess that reduces your chances of directing a Marvel film to a zero.

 **NADIR** : It's for the best.

I must ask him how his relationship with him came to be, since they seem like unlikely friends.

 **NADIR** : It was purely by chance, which got me excited. He seemed like the typical trope of the jerk with a heart of gold that learns to be a better person. And he had inspiring, movie-like speeches. He also got all of my movie references, which is basically all you need for me to like you.

He also tells me how he found out about him being a fake lawyer.

 **NADIR** : I found out the first week of classes. He pretended to be a certified Spanish tutor to get with a friend of mine. When that plan didn't work out, he confessed he used to be a phony lawyer and that he got caught. He told us that he never got anything done because of how smart he is. I never understood if he meant that in a good or bad way. Anyway, it's an inside anecdote, we became friends shortly after that, we all did. It was our pilot episode.

Nadir is known for being extra meta in his interviews, was he like this in college, since he called his first encounter with his friends a pilot episode? How did it affect his relationships with other people? 

**NADIR** : I really drove people up the wall with it. I just hate when life is simple. To enjoy it, we need to stop limiting ourselves to monotony. It wasn't hard to do it, Greendale was a magical place where magical things happened all the time. It felt like an unconventional, cult-esque sitcom. It was heaven for me, life had never been funner, its wackiness made it worthwhile.

 **INT** : Is your life still as magical as before?

 **NADIR** : Trick question. Yes and no. Yes as in it's still magical. No as in not in the same way. I'm no longer playing paintball with my college friends or having nervous breakdowns that make everything look like claymation. I have grown, we all have, that doesn't mean the magic should be lost. That would be boring.

 **INT** : Like the first half of the first season of _The Wire_.

Nadir's eyes sparkle and he shoots his finger gun at me. I laugh.

 **NADIR** : Exactly like the first half of the first season of _The Wire_.

We talk a bit more about our College experiences, I tell him about that time I tripped on a banana peel and got a heartshaped scar on my belly, he tells me that once he had what he calls " _a Nicholas Cage overdose_ " that ended with him rampaging and freaking his entire class out.

 **NADIR** : But the professor loved it.

As we reach the end of one of my all time favorite interviews (I could already tell), I come to the conclusion that Abed Nadir is a person so endearing and charming that he doesn't seem real, which makes the fact that he is even cooler. How wonderful it is to know we have people like him in our industry, and that we get to live in the same period of time as him.

 **INT** : It's been an exciting week, what are you going to do now?

 **NADIR** : Who knows? Life is an unpredictable mess. It's great. Right now I'm going to grab a pizza with Troy and watch _Lord of The Rings_. The rest can wait.

I find his answer so moving I almost tear up. Whilst I watch him leave with his partner, I realize I'm craving pizza and to see Elijah Wood's baby face. Maybe Abed Nadir is a wizard after all, and he has enchanted me.

_Stories of Our Stories hits select theaters on June 24th_

**Author's Note:**

> Stay safe everyone! And please listen to Ken and Joel's podcast, it's amazing!


End file.
